Before we start know that people dislike the use of summoners, and will likely be kick from most groups at high level, unless playing with friends of course. This is important to know that with the end of open beta we see nerf to auras hurting solo summoners.

Your positioning is a key factor when playing with minions, make sure their always in front of you when entering battles to ensure your not attacked and killed.

The only way to see the DPS of a minion is by placing one of the following support gems:Added "Minion Types" DamageMinion Types:FireColdLightingChaos (Generic damage type)

Getting the right spectres is EXTREMELY important. I use the minions at Solaris Temple Level 3 they are called Flame Sentinel. I am also a big fan of getting the range mobs in Lunaris level 2-3 their called Tentacle Miscreation and fire 1 projectile from each hand. So they fire 8 projectile every .3 sec(INSANE).

-Tip press A when summoning a spectre to select the right one. (sometimes mob corpse can stack on each other.

Next you want personal guards to tank Bosses/Mobs that want to get to you, best scaling hp in the game. Currently mine have 12k hp each (x10 of them) only have 7.2k now, not as good as before but still do good gamage with minion instability which deals 33% of total life when it dies(big damages).

Minion Speed Vs. Melee Physical Damage (Utility vs Damage)
I started using minion speed over melee physical damage, when i noticed how fast they moved(They're so fast!) which means they can get in front of you faster to tank oncoming enemy's, therefore it minimizes the risk to yourself.

I also have raise Skeleton which are attached to a totem and the Skeletons swarmed the boss so he cant move, while your spectres kill them. Really good trick while dealing with boss such as Brutes etc.

I don't use theses bad boys end game, and prefer to switch out my gloves to ones with auras in them(or gold find gear), only use them when starting the game and need to get my zombie army going.

If i'm going up a boss i know i cant win by face tanking them, instead you should force the boss to commit suicide. How this is achieved is by placing totems on each side of the boss and going to hide somewhere, and when he kills your minions they explode doing damage if you have specked into the minion instability on the skill tree, and if the boss ever gets near you just run behind another building.

Fighting Melee Boss (Oak i'm looking at you man)
Another method is to run knock back flame totem, here it is in action.(Just think of the traps as minions)

1.7: Flasks & Healing - Important part in healing minions when you don't want them to die.

A side note, for your health flasks you should try to get "Grants 57% of life recovery to minions" keep rolling for it until you do, though the highest flask is 960 so you need to spam the flask to keep them up in boss fights.(Adding quality to a flask increases recovery amount, 960 is the base)

-Use spectres as your main source of dps.
-use zombie/Skeleton to be a meat shield and tank boss.
-Aim to run with groups at low level, as this is the point where you are most vulnerable.
-Also soloed Piety on cruel. Brutes took me less than 1 min on Merciless solo. End game is really easy if you take your time and don't rush into things.

Currently level 78 and have:
10 Zombies
4 Spectres
14 Skeletons
1 animated guardian
With a grand total of 30(can be increased by 4 with another wand, but the would mean i'm reserving 60% of my life)

Minion Instability:
Minion Health scales really well into endgame, and this does tons of damage.

Additional Spectre:
Spectres are your main source of damage, so more of them means more damage. This is what this whole build is about.

Inbetween:

Chaos Inoculation:
Can be used but i highly recommend not to, as you wont be able to use the wand, and will loses a ton of stats from your sheild. So you will need a ton of Energy Shield. Energy shield is restricted as you want to get because of the unique minion items. I forgot to mention you can use this with the sword if you can stack a lot of energy shield for early game.

Avoid:

Necromantic Aegis:
Getting this skill might seem like a good idea, but the extra stats that you gain from it help out alot because your actually quite squishy compared to all the other class, and can be gimped from mobs that jump towards you. I find it's better to use auras like discipline or ones that add damage etc, depending on the needs of your minions.

Eldritch battery

"

I got a question, What do you think about eldrich battery vs energy shield? On my summoner I have 2k+ hp now. Midnight bargain will reduce that to 1400hp.

More mana would equal

- faster mana regen
- more auras for your self and minions and party memebers
- i plan to stack anger, wrath, hatred, haste, discipline, grace, clarity, (percentage and high mana cost one attached to a reduced mana support gem)
- I only need 200 mana to be able to cast everything I need(totem/sepctre being the most expensive)

Effects Mode
-Being able to turn up, down or off the particle effects.

Minion Pathing - Dungons
Being able to recall minions to your position when entering a room. (they don't understand how to enter rooms)

Minion Aggression Range
Increase the range minion agro, or add a function if one minion gets attacked, the other minions go and aid that minion. Sometimes they just wander around aimlessly.

Animated Guardian tool tip
Adding minion damage and health in the tool tip for Animated Guardian just like other minions have.

Saving Spectres //Giant buff
Giving us the ability to save spectres once we have captured them, or save them in some kind of support gem :O (Kinda like Pokemon)

Zombie Dance Skin
Micheal Jackson Zombie skin, /zombiedance and they all line up and do the thriller dance

Disconnect
Getting disconnect and losing your spectres and zombies. Can get really frustrating.

Gem Leveling Bug?
When you gems level up they don't affect your current minion they are attached to. I know this because they only take the stats from when you raised the minion, because you can take the gems/swap the gems out and they don't make a difference to your current one.

Flame Sentinel
Flame Sentinel seem to be the only spectres that cause a lot of lag when they use their skills. (LMP + Fork?)

I have a very similar build. Can you explain to me what your extra totem is for? I feel like running about 9 points down there is such a waste. Instead I use arc + 2 lightning chance nodes to shock mobs.

I have a very similar build. Can you explain to me what your extra totem is for? I feel like running about 9 points down there is such a waste. Instead I use arc + 2 lightning chance nodes to shock mobs.

When fighting large mobs you want to get your skeletons out fast so it only takes half the time to create a wall of minions(since you can have 16) or you can use them to swarm bosses so they cant move(love doing that) which means your spectres can AA them. Also the 5% to max elemental resist is really nice.

edit: also they do 33% with minion instability and currently have 4k hp. 1320 give or take resistance

I think you are wasting alot of skill points getting a second totem - just use a quality faster cast with one totem to the same effect (getting skellys out faster).

That frees up a ton of skill points for more health and you can apply shock charges or somthing else with your own spells.

The reason i ran 2 spell totems is because of how i play the necro i try to get as many skeletons up as possible and to get them killed just as fast(If you read over Killing boss by suicide part).

Yeah i thought about that but Fast casting, but it uses a skill slot i just cant afford to have. Minion Damage and Minion Life are really strong, even though they don't show dps(i hope they will show you their actually value later).
The chest is the only slot the goes higher than 4 slots, and its reserved for my raise spectres.

Im only missing 4 of the health nodes, So what would you do with the spare 11 points? and why?

You can respec the 3 first Intelligence nodes by linking the left side of the tree with the right using only one Intelligence node, the one between Chaos Resistance (16%) and Agility and Might. With the extra 2 nodes, you can take Life and Fitness on the left.
-20 Intelligence +18% Life +10 Strength

Then, you can respec one Mana node next to the start to get Avoid Cast Interruption, or you can respec the same node and the Intelligence one under Elemental Equilibrium to relink with the 2 unused Life nodes, where we got Fitness.
In the last configuraton, you lose 8% Mana Regen and +10 Intelligence but gain +16% Life
Not sure you want it though.